The bow has a pronounced curve. Trying to follow it with a single piece of wood would require a lot of fussy joinery work. Instead, I roughly shaped 4 pieces of wood to follow the general shape. Since the pieces would be bedded in epoxy/woodflour putty, the shaping could be very rough, indeed. These are the "finished" pieces. No one should be put off by the amount of woodworking involved.
Nor by the price. These are recycled bits of a tangerine crate - very strong, yet light.
Each piece is locked into place by the one above it. The final piece is held in place by the clamp. The piece of polyethylene keeps the clamp from becoming a permanent part of the boat.
Note the large triangular area at the bow. This is an ideal gluing surface for attaching the deck, another advantage of a stempiece over the endpour. Also visible are the tacks between the wires. Once the wires are removed, they'll hold the hull together while the fillets are applied. They're very flat to allow smooth fillets.
The big piece is carved from a spruce 2x4 scrap. The smaller pieces are carved from the tangerine crate scrap. The one at the top left is pieced from 3 separate pieces which are hot-glued. Again, the pieces can be left very rough. There's no reason for time-consuming, finicky work.
The stern piece gives an impression of massive solid strength. And it is. Yet, it's actually lighter than an equivalent end pour. Once the putty cured, the pieces were touched up with a chisel to remove sudden transitions and a final layer of putty was applied.
The stern is strong enough to allow the mounting of any rudder system, an eyebolt to attach tiedowns, tow lines, etc.